Trust Your Intuition – How I Almost Joined a Pyramid Scheme

Intuition is often mixed up with the word instinct. They’re sort of the same thing, except instinct is more of an instant reaction that’s not based on knowledge or reasoning. Intuition, on the other hand, is of a feeling you get from previous knowledge that adds up to a certain moment or a special kind of awareness of what’s going on.

Instead of saying, “Yes” or “No,” it’s more like, “Yeah… maybe this will work out…” or “I… I don’t really know about this…” How do I know this? Well, I went through a very powerful experience in my life that taught me to trust my intuition through a series of “build-up” moments. This is how the story went.

One day during my freshman year of college, I was heading to discussion class and noticed an attractive girl on the side of the steps. As I walking up, she approached me with a bright smile. “Hi there,” she said, “Would you be interested in filling out a quick survey?”

I told her I was kind of in a hurry to class, but filled it out anyway. As I was filling it out, she talked to me about what I liked about college, what I wanted to do in the future, and if I was interested in doing business. I told her that I still didn’t know what I wanted to do at the time, but I was willing to explore opportunity.

She nodded in approval and then told me about a business meeting that was going on that day that talked about new opportunities for college students. I was sort of interested, but more concerned about getting to class. Before I left, she asked me if I could leave my email or cell phone number on the survey so she could talk to me more about it later on, since I was going to be late. I wrote it down for. “Thanks,” she said with a smile as I nodded and left to class, thinking that this wasn’t going to be too serious.

Later that afternoon when I was lying around in my room, I got a call from an unknown number and picked it up. “Hi, do you remember me? I’m that girl you talked to today,” a recognizable voice said. It was the survey girl. “Oh yeah… Hi,” I hesitantly replied. We had some small chat about life. In between the conversation, she asked me if I was still interested in going to a business meeting that she was talking about. There was a pause, and I pondered the idea for a second. I didn’t have anything else to do that night, but I didn’t want to waste an entire night going to a meeting that I barely knew anything about.  She waited for a response.

“Yeah, sure, when is it?”

“Cool. It starts at 7, but we have to leave at 5:30 because it takes about an hour to get there. Can you wait out in the curb? Me and my friends will pick you up.”

“Oh… okay.”

“Great! Oh yeah, one more thing. Since this is a professional business meeting, do you mind wearing semi-formal attire?”

I looked at my pajamas and basketball shorts.

“Yeah, I figure something out.”

“Cool! I’ll see you there.”

“Bye.”

At 5:30 P.M., a truck pulled on the side of the curb. A guy was driving with a girl sitting next to him in front. My new friend was sitting in the back. I realized that they were all nicely dressed when I opened the door. There was an empty seat just for me.

It was night time when we got there, but we were early. This place looked a lot better than I expected; in fact, it was absolutely gorgeous. There were colorful lights everywhere. The building seem to be made of marble stone. To top it off, there were many nice looking BMW’s and Mercedes-Benz were parked in front. It really looked like a high-class hotel.

Once we got in, we were seated on wooden chairs with red cushion. I talked to my friend while observing the people there. There were also college students that came from other campuses, all well-dressed. Some even wore business suits on. I felt a little intimidated.

After almost an hour of waiting, finally, we were allowed into the meeting. As we walked down the hallway towards the door, I noticed that there were beautiful pictures on the wall. It almost felt liked the hotel had suddenly changed into an art gallery.

The doors opened and I was surprised to see how many people there were inside. The place probably had around hundred students sitting side by side next to each other. We were awaiting a presentation by someone that who was well known in this community. There was definitely a lot of anticipation.

Suddenly, the lights appeared and a guy with frizzled, slick-back hair greeted all of us with an enthusiastic voice. I heard loud clapping, cheers, and excitement filled the room. The projection slide came down and the presentation began. I don’t remember his exact words of the meeting, but I sort of went like this.

“Welcome!”

People shouted and cheered.

“How would you guys want to make more money in college!?” The room roared. I even started to get enthused by the energy of the speaker and the audience. At the very least, I was intrigued.

“Awesome!”

The man then began to speak of story about how he wanted to retire early and support his grandma. His grandma was one of the closest people to him and he wanted to offer things to her that she couldn’t afford to buy in her lifetime. The more he talked about his relationship between his dream and his grandma, the more touching the story became, and the more engaged I became in it. He felt trapped however, because  he couldn’t do this. His old job required him to work about forty hours a week, and he pointed out that by the time he retired, it might have been too late.

Now he started to speak with more passion. He talked about how he eventually started a company that allowed him to have this freedom and financial ability that he wanted to help him pursue his dream. He then told everybody to look at the projection and the music started. It went through a slide show of all the things that people were able to accomplish through this company; everything from nice houses to nice Lamborghini’s to VIP parties and most of all, people smiling and having a good time. He said, he was not able to do this, if he were to stay at his old company and waited until he was really old. He asked the crowd, if we wanted the same freedom too. The audience, including my friend, and even me this time shouted, “Yeah!”

He told us how the process worked by methods of how we can add members to the company. Every time we added a member, whether it was a friend, a family member, or a stranger, we would be one hundred and fifty dollars. That’s a lot of money i thought. Maybe this job, or whatever you call it, might be worth it after all.

“Welcome aboard our newest member! This week, he has just made his first two sales and earned his money back! He is on his way to success. Give him a hand everybody!”

People clapped and cheered.

“And that’s it. All you need to do is add members to the company, and you will get a percentage of what they earn. Now, I know what you’re all thinking. It’s going to take forever for me to reach the top! That’s not true. This job isn’t for quitters. If you keep working at it, eventually, you’ll have tier below you and you will be on your way to living the dream you want. It took me two years to get where I am and you guys can do it too!”

People cheered again. I was actually felt pretty pumped myself. This doesn’t sound too hard. My looked at me and asked if I was interested and I said yes, “Yes!” I asked her how do I join and she said that I needed to put in a down payment of three hundred dollars, and within two recruit members, I would have earned my money back and be on the way to keeping whatever the rest of the money after that.

“Are you in?” she said with a smile.

“Let’s do this,” I replied.

“Okay, I need you to sign this though.”

We walked out and started heading back to our campus to get the money. I had just signed a paper for entering this business. My heart was pumping. Throughout the entire way home, I thought about how great it would be to have a job paying you one hundred a fifty dollars per person you recruit. People on campus were slaving away for seven dollars per hour doing “campus services” and needless to say, they were dreadful jobs.

During the quiet ride home, my excitement gradually started to wane though. Something told me that the process looked too good to be true. I started become skeptical, but another voice in my mind was telling me that I had already committed. We had already spent an ten hours from the time I’ve met here to this long car ride back and forth. Just get this over with.

Her friends parked at the curb and told them to wait. The night was awfully silent. I could hear our footsteps as we walked towards the nearest college campus ATM machine. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I had just got into college and I was already going to dish out three hundred dollars in cash to this person I barely even knew. Halfway to the ATM machine, that same feeling crept onto me again. This time it was more powerful. I kept repressing it down, telling it that it was already too late. I was already here and I’m not a person who likes to make false promises.

We got to the ATM machine. It was brightly lit and hard to miss.  My friend stood next to me. I could hear my heart beating faster and I knew her friends were waiting in the car waiting for her to get the money from me. I looked at the ATM machine. It was now or never. I knew my parents deposited a couple hundred dollars for me to buy school supplies, but I could earn that back… right? At that moment, I realized that I just couldn’t do it.

I looked over to my friend and did my best to make a horrible last-minute excuse.

“Hey, I’m sorry but… I just got into college and… I think I need this money for school,” I said with a cracked voice. There was a pause. She looked at me. I thought she was explode. Instead, she just said, “I understand.”

“So… hat about your friends?” I asked

“I’ll just tell them that I got the money,” she said with a half smile, this time not as bright as before.

“Thanks… I’m sorry about this.”

She smiled one last time and left, leaving me by myself. I felt guilty afterwards for doing that, but my inner voice was telling me that I did the right thing. I walked back to my door room in the chilly night with a sign of relief.

A few months later, I realized that what I was about to join at that time was called “a pyramid scheme”. I had no idea what that was at the time but I had researched more about it. One day when I was in my dorm, that same girl showed up. We greeted each other and talked about school. Then, somehow the topic of that night came up. I asked her how her “business” was doing. She told me that the entire thing collapsed and that she got out of it. She add more details about how the entire thing was a fluke. I responded with an, “Oh…” but inside I was telling myself, “Yes!” (in terms of me, of course ).

We became good friends after that and I asked her why she wanted to join something like that. She told me that she needed the money badly, that there was many problems going in the household, including financial ones. She became somewhat emotional after that.

I will always remember that experience because I have encountered similar situations even nowadays that remind me of it. I know exactly what people who are trying to get you to “take a survey” really want from you.

The lesson I have learned from this that I want to spread to you, even if you already know it, is to go with your intuition whenever you feel like it is trying to tell you something important. They often arise in moments of intense pressure and are trying to send you a message. Even if you might not  know the answer right away, or why a situation is happening, your emotions, or that “gut feeling” that you get, usually will guide you to the right path. In the end, you never know what kind of valuable experience you will learn later on in life from making a decision based on trusting your intuition.

photo credit: http2007